


for each who begins to weep

by language_escapes



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Episode: s02e20 No Lack of Void, Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-12
Updated: 2014-04-12
Packaged: 2018-01-19 03:22:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1453600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/language_escapes/pseuds/language_escapes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock isn't the only one who grieves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	for each who begins to weep

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for "No Lack of Void". A post-episode reaction. Unbeta'd.
> 
> Title from _Waiting for Godot_. The full quote is "For each one who begins to weep, somewhere else another stops."

He doesn’t know, she realizes.

He announces Alistair’s death abruptly, as though the death of the friend is something that can be dropped into casual conversation, and she has a flash of anger until she realizes- _he doesn’t know_.

“What?” she half shouts, stunned and sick feeling. Alistair can’t be dead. She saw him last month. He was fine. He told her about his show that he was working on. He was happy, excited.

She had tea with him once a month, and he can’t be dead.

But Sherlock doesn’t know that they were friends, because he somehow never deduced that her monthly tea was with _Alistair_ , and he’s grieving, so Joan squares her shoulders and digs desperately for a doctor’s calm. 

She can manage her own grief for now.

******  
It’s the little things that hit her.

Sherlock grieves loudly and openly, even though he likes to pretend that he keeps things under wraps. She’s never had the heart to tell him that he isn’t as good at concealing his feelings as he thinks he is. He struggles with Alistair’s death, with the fact that it was his addiction that killed him, in the end. It’s the big things, for Sherlock.

For her, it’s the little things.

It’s the tickets she finds while digging through her purse, the ones to Alistair’s show that she bought when the box office first opened. She was going to take Sherlock as a surprise. She closes her eyes and swallows around the lump in her throat, putting them back, unable to throw them away just yet.

It’s the Derry-accent recording that Alistair made for Sherlock. He listens to it, sometimes, staring blankly down at his phone while Alistair carefully enunciates colloquialisms, slowly at first and then picking up speed until it’s at a regular pace. Joan stands in the kitchen, putting the kettle on, and pretends that her hands aren’t shaking.

It’s the _Waiting for Godot_ script, left out on the table in the lock room, Sherlock done perusing it for meaning and significance. She looks at it and wonders if he saw Alistair’s show the night that his costume ripped before he went onstage, if Sherlock knows that Alistair once performed wearing a costume held together with gaffer’s tape and a prayer.

It’s the day that she walks into Alistair’s bookstore without thinking about it, wanting to grab a new book, and is hit with her grief so suddenly that she has to grip the railing and just breathe for a moment, assailed by the familiar smells and sights except for the one, the most important one of all. 

Joan grieves silently, where no one can see.

******  
“You’ve been quiet, Watson,” Sherlock says, looking up at her. He’s sitting on the ground, tinkering with… something (Joan hasn’t felt the strength to ask) while she sits on the couch, curled up around herself, book in hand.

“I’m reading. It’s not really a noisy activity,” she says, trying to concentrate.

“Since the Anthrax case,” he clarifies.

Joan forces herself to focus harder on her book. She doesn’t want to talk about this. “We had an Anthrax scare, Sherlock. You weren’t in the city in 2001. You don’t remember how bad it got.”

She can feel him watching her. She doesn’t look at him. She’s reading _Waiting for Godot_. Alistair used to rave about the importance of Beckett in the development of the theatre of the absurd. Joan doesn’t even know what that means. She’s never been a big theatre person.

“Come with me,” he says abruptly.

She turns a page. “Where?”

“To Alistair’s grave.” At her silence, Sherlock plunges on. “You knew him, didn’t you? Better than I thought.”

She clears her throat. “He was my friend,” she says simply, around the tightening of her throat. “We had tea together once a month.”

“You saw him more often than I did, then, in recent years,” Sherlock says, standing up and crossing to the sofa. “I didn’t realize you were friends. I- I didn’t realize you were grieving, too.”

Joan blinks rapidly, trying to ignore the fact that the words are blurring on the page. “I didn’t tell you,” she says softly.

“I should have known. It is inexcusable.”

“I was going to take you to see his show,” she blurts without thinking about it first. She puts down the book and closes her eyes. When she opens them again, Sherlock is gazing down at her steadily.

“I would have liked that,” he says. “I am sorry you never saw him perform. He was… astounding. Truly.”

She turns her face away and, for the first time, lets the tears fall.

******  
She puts the bouquet of flowers down. Tulips. He once told her they were his favorite. Ian kept a patch of them just for Alistair in their tiny garden. Behind her, Sherlock shifts, hands in his pockets and eyes on the ground. He offered, once, to go to the cemetery with her. She doubts that either of them ever expected it to be this grave they visited together.

She doesn’t say anything- she’s never been the type to talk to a headstone- but she does trace the letters of Alistair’s name with her finger. It’s not enough to capture who he truly was. Compassionate and calm, with an unexpected streak of humor. She wishes they could have attended the funeral. 

“He was a good man,” she says, needing to say something, needing there to be some sort of eulogy. “I’m going to miss him.”

Sherlock clears his throat. “As will I.”

It isn’t enough, but it will have to do.


End file.
